


Remade

by hhavenh



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 15:58:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3073736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhavenh/pseuds/hhavenh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh, how the wind does moan around him! Such bellowing strength, the branches above cracking as ice splinters and shards, Bastian’s irrepressible ache made audible through nature’s grand symphony. Such ache is foolish though, the furthest thing to even know when his lord walks proud once more, untouched by madness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Remade

High and glorious is the moon and even more so the stars, but Bastian does not care. Cannot care, when air is burning in his lungs, hands all aquiver if even for a moment he lets them unfurl from tight fists. Behind his refuge of trees still clashes the steel of his dear friend and his returned lord, sharp screams of blades and declarations of might echoing brightly. He does not watch, cannot look on such renewed faculties without becoming undone.

Not that he is so far from such even now, an inescapable burn behind his eyes, breaths shallow as Bastian slides down a trunk, fingers so cold in the frost encrusted debris beneath the tree’s grand canopy. Again and again the steel does ring. Each a further testament to returned vigor and sanity. So similar does it sound to the last time his lord held a sword. Hissing and frothing in the shadow of Pinell, such madness in his visage.

Bastian gasps in air, all of him so clenched and tense. He can’t dispel the knowledge of Renning’s terrible might, of his jaw so tight and pale in enforced fury.

Oh, how the wind does moan around him! Such bellowing strength, the branches above cracking as ice splinters and shards, Bastian’s irrepressible ache made audible through nature’s grand symphony. Such ache is foolish though, the furthest thing to even know when his lord walks proud once more, untouched by madness.

But still Bastian shakes. Still he grits his teeth and clenches his jaw, so exquisitely happy but also now again damned to propriety. No longer can he take his lord’s hand to soothe him from the distress of demons. Nevermore may he pass his fingers through Renning’s thick hair under the assumption of calming him from violence. Again he must take up the olden charade, where continued fealty is Bastian’s only desire. Where he hoards each precious word from his lord’s lips, acting as if every praise and private comment does not threaten to break him.

They set out to retake the world, but Bastian will know no accomplishment from the act. Life will be no different. His chest will still seize in repressed affection at every minute glance. Every moment together will be a long familiar struggle of delight and torment. The words of his heart will never be what escapes from his tongue.

-

“Heh, well met,” Geoffrey tells him at last, a grin born of exertion across his face. He stands with a confidence that was not yet whole when he was under Renning’s tutelage, his lance carried like the staunchest of allies. “Fierce as ever.”

“Well done, uncle!” It is as if time is circular. Elincia seems hardly different from the last time she watched one of Renning’s spars, her cheeks flushed as if she’d only just laid down her own blade. “I know victory will be at hand with you again beside us!”

It is jarring to hear her speak so plainly of battle, a discomfort that Renning is apparently alone in. Lucia shows no distress at her charge’s banality of phrase. Geoffrey is still catching his breath, looking beyond their meagre ring of torch light. “May it be swift, all the same,” Renning answers, the heft of his sheathed sword a comfort against his leg. “It has been long since I beheld Crimea, and I would hasten to that day as quickly as I might.” He expects a rejoinder from someone he then notices is not present.

Something rises in Renning at his vassal’s absence, a rarity in the last years. A mounting unease spreads across his chest, Elincia barely distracting him from it when she retreats from the cold, a youthful gaiety to her step that Renning can hardly remember ever possessing. Her lady follows as the wind again rises, moaning through the surrounding trees. It is strange to watch her leave, an overlaid image in Renning’s mind of long tresses lashing behind her.

A sound startles him from the reverie, though it is only Geoffrey when he turns, leaning his lance against a tree. He is spared a brief glance, “I-, I’ll be right back.” Geoffrey rushes then into the darkness, ice and twigs snapping under his determined heel.

Renning watches him go, the night barely disrupting his gaze. Just one more distortion of his body that is resilient to fade, though this is one attribute that he might almost call a boon. One without which he would not feel so at ease in the midst of unknown woodland. One that allows him to see Geoffrey reach for the dark sleeve of a man that Renning recognizes through the violence that clenches his chest anew.

Unwarranted violence, of course, nothing but his own weakness to blame for the hurt Renning has given. Even with his mind again his own there is a dark feeling in the grip of his hands, an echo in his ear of snapping bone, a shuddering throughout of such violent memory that refuses to dispel until Renning turns away, breaths again rushing through him. He has been made anew, but how can he know any true difference when crafted by the old material? It is still the strength of his arm that let such blood. Still the might of his hand that bruised and tore flesh. Still his stature and breadth that has terrified and harmed and abused those who sought naught but his returned faculties.

Solitude is a boon as he struggles from the depths of the sudden fury that cloaks his mind. Silence calms the rage of his heart, even Geoffrey’s desperately quiet murmurs no longer heard. But still the openness is too much. Too strange, after how long Renning has existed behind locked doors and the dense canvas of a wagon. He draws his cloak tight around him, head down as he seeks shelter amidst the trees.

How loud the crackle of forest debris beneath his feet. Such sudden sounds in the woodland stillness. Each one is too reminiscent of shattered glass. Of buckling floorboards and crumbling stone. Perhaps Melior may not be the haven he envisions, if even in Begnion’s wilderness he is plagued by his home’s destruction. How will Renning know any rest in the halls where his terror began? How will he be able to exist within the walls where his brother was ended?

Renning walks faster, like he can speed himself from the thoughts, like the vision of Ramon’s last gasping breath is something he can run from. Call him a coward, but he would if such were possible. Renning would hasten beyond even the endless ocean if the journey would erase the splatter of blood against the courtyard, the clatter of a crown as it struck the ground…the barely audible gurgle of Ramon’s last desperate attempts at words.

“No more,” Renning snarls, hand fisted tight around the hilt of his sword. He is done with these thoughts, this constant recollection, will not still be hounded by them every hour of every day. Even out of his mind Renning knew little beyond his brother’s demise, constantly weathered the last echoes of the queen’s blade as it shattered, the crisp screams as Daein’s bannermen flew over the battlements.

Here he stands, a man remade after so long a monster, and still he is less. Still he is plagued, if only not by madness.

The wind bellows for a moment, forcing Renning's heavy cloak from the ground. He pauses, lifting his head and breathing deep the frigid air. Calm returns slowly, within and without. Renning is not practiced at quelling his own aggravations, has always relied on the balm of another. A quiet jest whispered, even the barest touch of his arm. Bastian always could affect his mood like no other.

Again Renning knows unease, though it is short lived. For there, amidst the darkness that his eyes can pierce with the barest effort, the sloping length of a cloak. The distinct coil of gathered curls.

None else, but the dearest man in Renning’s past or present.

 

~

[art by hhavenh](http://hhavenh.tumblr.com/post/106763073000/remade-a-fiction-by-hhavenh-oh-how-the-wind)

 

“You are hardly a creature that relishes the cold, if memory serves.”

He can see Bastian jerk in start. “Milord!” Strange, as Renning had hardly kept himself quiet as he'd trekked through fallen foliage. His vassal is the furthest thing from unobservant, but still there is nothing in his face but surprise, something reminiscent of distress in his bearing as he hurries to his feet, tucked yet close to the iced trunk of a mammoth tree. “My-, my apologies. Thy battle-.”

“Geoffrey would have proven the victor, had he not forfeited.” Annoyance takes him anew as he continues forward, though Renning can’t determine if it is the obvious protection of his pride that frustrates him or the reality that he was nearly bested by his disciple.  “I had not expected to be so out of practice.”

“But a momentary lapse,” Bastian tells him, sliding slowly back, a soundless retreat that Renning doesn’t understand. “I wouldst be most sure that thy prowess will return in short order.”

Renning takes another step, “Such confidence.” He puts a hand against the trunk as he comes around, ghosting his vassal’s path, “I hope to be worthy of it.”

Bastian’s laugh is not false, not entirely. But it doesn’t impart the mirth and enjoyment Renning has always felt from Bastian’s cheer. “Surely an unnecessary concern, sire mine.” He retreats further, hidden again behind another tree, Renning following just as slowly.

It seems they are always locked like this, always one after the other, a constant chase with unspoken words. Glances that say too much in the company of others. Excuses made to allow the barest of moments spent together. How strange that Renning can look back on the past years with any fondness, the touch of Bastian’s hand against his brow a spot of brightness, the low richness of intimate whispers in his ear a glory to recall. “Based on tonight’s performance, perhaps not.”

Still his vassal tucks himself into shadow, “Enjoyment was had by all, at the very least.”

“Yourself excluded.” Does Bastian think him blind? Does he honestly imagine that Renning can’t see the distressed furrow of his brow, the nervous clench of his hand? Renning knows this creature like he knows his own strength, can almost taste the despair in the air. “Why do you hide from me?” If anything is unnecessary it is this retreat, as if there are any here that they need worry on. As if Renning would even care what any would say should he take his vassal’s hand and pull him close.

“High climbs the moon, sire mine,” Bastian manages tightly, almost entirely hidden behind a trunk, “mayhaps we should retire afore the morning’s march.” So obvious is his worry, so plain his fear. All of which Renning would put to rest if only he were let near.

But still they dance, Bastian retreating shadow by shadow as Renning steps slowly forward.

“I have been untrue.” The words are hardly enough to articulate his transgression. Surely they lack the depth of regret that twists in Renning’s stomach.

They are enough to make Bastian pause though, a faltered step as hesitates, “Milord?”

“I did not forget what we shared in Osmin.” He cannot see his vassal’s face, but he does not need to. 

Bastian’s hissed intake of air is clear, the way his hand fists against the bark of a tree, “You-, you be mistaken-.”

“I was not so inebriated as I allowed you to think.” Another falsehood he must atone for. One more mis-done deed that has charted their current course of denial.

But Bastian refuses him, retreating again, sliding away as if he imagines Renning won’t gladly give chase. “No,” Bastian breathes, still such heated denial, such dedication to the lie that Renning forced him to with the disregard of their passion. “T’was nothing-.”

“Nothing!” Renning lips pull back as if he would laugh. “Nothing, you call the memory that kept me whole so long. Nothing, you name the night that I count as the dearest in my life.” He stalks forward, but Bastian steps back too quick to be grabbed, “You call it nothing, when I know that you’ve thought of it every day since.”

“I mayn’t think on that which didst not occur,” Bastian whispers, again outstepping Renning’s reach.

So stubborn his vassal. So cautious and distrustful. Necessary qualities, though rarely has Renning ever been the victim of them. To be so now is the height of tragedy, the epitome of everything wrong in this frozen world. “Every touch of your hand,” the words are little louder than the crunch of frost and leaves under his feet. “The radiance of your unbound curls,” he can see them again, spread in debauched decadency atop his pillows. “The way you said my name-.”

“Cease!” Bastian turns fully away, the twist of his cloak shining like midnight velvet in his refuge of shadow, “I beg thee-.”

Renning steps into the darkness and murmurs close to his vassal’s ear, “How exquisite you felt in my arms-.”

“Cease this mockery!” Bastian demands, frustration echoing from his throat when Renning takes his wrist. “Pretend not like it ever mattered to thee-.”

“Pretending it wasn’t everything was the only falsehood I may be accused of.” A worthless act. The grandest of any and all of Renning’s mistakes. It nearly undoes him to think he could have had this creature so long ago. Could have taken Bastian’s hand and weathered the capital’s shock with the greatest of contentment. “You shined like the sun in the haze that has been my life these last years.” Renning steps closer and lifts Bastian’s hand to his lips, warming the frigid flesh with every word, “I would know that light again, and never be parted from it.”

“Say that not,” Bastian whispers, eyes clenched shut, like the sight of Renning’s love pains him. “Say that not which is impossible.”

Renning presses his lips to a knuckle, “There is nothing impossible with you beside me.”

But still Bastian resists, still he tries to pull away, “Never have you been so cruel-.”

“But I am not,” Renning assures, drawing him closer, curling a hand against Bastian’s throat, imparting warmth as best he can, no other desire but to be his vassal’s every comfort. “I have carried these words for years, have never been so content as in your presence, do not deny me this now that we can-.”

“We can nothing,” Bastian bites out even as he leans forward, his head an unfelt presence against Renning’s shoulder guard. “The world is no different, there are none that would allow us this when there is such a gulf betwixt us.”

“You think I care?” Renning bends and rests his forehead against Bastian’s sunshine hair, “Here again I have my sanity after so long without, after so much mayhem and blood rent, and you think I care what the aristocracy will have to say on my loving someone of your station? Station that is not even so below my own?”

“But I be not blood,” Bastian insists in breathy words, hands fisting in Renning’s cloak, “and that is all they will see. Were I trueborn of Fayre, then-, then mayhaps, but-.” Renning clenches a hand in blonde coils, arching Bastian’s neck and taking his lips the same he did years ago. His patience has never known a long tether, and now it is like a fire burns under his skin, any tolerance he may ever have had for the denial of his passions dissipating like so much ash and smoke.

His vassal finally seems of the same mind, no denial left in him, pressing against Renning’s girth, pulling them closer together, the feel of him so invigorating, so grand. So new after the long years apart, a man in Renning’s arms when before Bastian had been barely past the cusp of adulthood. “You are mine,” Renning whispers, the moon so bright in his vassal’s gaze, “as you always have been. Do not think I would be parted from you if even the goddess herself sought to take you from my side.”

Bastian hides again, rolls high on his toes and presses against Renning’s throat, “Never thought I-,” he tries, each word so breathy and broken. “N-never, I-I, I refused to even think...”

Renning opens his arms and surrounds Bastian entirely, keeping him from the chill of night. “You need think on nothing but my love,” he murmurs against golden curls. Bastian breathes deep against him, pressing ever closer, and Renning’s lips pull back in sudden exaltation. He has never known such glory and contentment as he does now, here at the end of the world.

 


End file.
